Today was a rather interesting day. My cohort went on a trip to Officer Cadet School (OCS), supposedly aimed at stirring enthusiasm about National Service (since 4 in 5 students are guys). Although it didn’t really apply to me, it was a rare and meaningful experience. It was probably the first and last time I stepped into the training institute.

What I liked about the school was that everything was extremely neat and precise. The trees are all aligned, the steps are very consistent, the place is very clean, and I bet each strand of grass was carefully trimmed to a precise height. Very nice.

I tried firing one round of a general purpose machine gun. It was quite cool because everything felt real – looking through the aiming thing, pulling the trigger, and experiencing the recoil. That’s the closest I've ever gotten to a destructive weapon. I tried holding a rifle managed to take a close look at it. It was quite heavy. I wonder how people even run with stuff like that.

I had my fun, but no, I don’t think I’ll ever sign on to the army.